Friday, February 29, 2008

"City of Men" continues in the land where "City of God" (2002) left off, returning to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. This one is called Dead End Hill. While God focused on a photographer with a camera, Men focuses on two teens with guns.

The new movie was not created as a sequel to the 2002, or does it have the depth. It has an overlapping production crew, but it's based on a TV series. "City of God" was nominated in four Oscar categories. It exposed the political system's corruption in Brazil. The new movie shines with the cinematography and music.

The storyline is flat compared to the predecessor. The movie still shows the culture of violence based on drugs. The main characters are two older male teens. One has a child after his first time having sex, and a wife who leaves the family for a better job. His father was shot in the back. The other teen doesn't know who his father is, until he does some investigation. He finds his father was recently released from prison, following murder charges. You can see where this is going.

Some called "City of God" one of the best films in history. I agree with that assessment. "City of Men" is in a tough spot, being compared with the previous movie.SUBTITLEDRENEGADE EYE

Monday, February 25, 2008

The organizers were predicting the biggest demonstration the country has ever seen on Thursday, 21st February 2008. The government hoped that the outcry over Kosovo could mobilize more people than the events around the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s or the overthrow of Milosevic in 2000 and claim they had gathered a rally of a million. The truth is that a more modest number of around 150,000 people poured into the streets of Belgrade. Nevertheless, the ruling class successfully managed to orchestrate an artificial outburst of destructive nationalism which resulted in a zero security situation in down town Belgrade, with extreme right-oriented lumpen pillaging and plundering in what appeared to be a fascist carnival of mindless aggression.

It started with minor groups of young people gathering in the centre, waving Serbian and Chetnik flags and singing nationalistic songs. They were eventually joined by people who arrived from other Serbian cities and towns. Schools in Serbia were closed on the orders of the Minister of Education, workers were given a free afternoon and transportation was free. Tensions were already running high, since many of the participants in the rally were apparently intoxicated before the rally had even begun. The whole mass seemed as if it was going to explode at any time, and eventually it did.

The speeches from the platform were painfully conservative, invoking the myth of the Battle of Kosovo, presenting a medieval feudal battle that took place in 1389 as a national struggle for freedom of the - at the time non-existent - Serbian nation. Another thing the speakers appealed to was, once again, international bourgeois law, with much gratitude directed at the countries that are refusing to recognize Kosovo, namely Russia, Spain, South Africa, Brazil, Cuba and others...

The speakers included the most prominent Serbian far right politicians, including Tomislav Nikolić, leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), Velimir Ilić, a minister in the Government of Serbia, with the main figure of the rally being Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica. The main pro-Western Democratic Party officially also participated in the organization of the protest, although its leader, Borislav Tadić, suddenly found himself on a diplomatic trip at the time, thus not being able to attend. The tone of the speeches was extremely aggressive, as was the way in which the audience responded. The chauvinist slogans mentioned in the earlier article were heard once again, while the bourgeois politicians did nothing to tame those racist outbursts.

After the rally, the wave of destruction was started with attacks on foreign embassies. The mob ascended on the Turkish, US, Croatian, British, German, Slovenian, Italian, Dutch and Belgian embassies causing mayhem on the way and trying to inflict as much damage as possible on the above stated targets. After the embassies had been "dealt with", the mob went on to pillage and plunder stores and banks in down town Belgrade - leaving alone only those that showed the sign "Kosovo je Srbija" ("Kosovo is Serbia") in their windows. It was a clear statement to anyone thinking of dissent: the regime has its unofficial hound dogs willing to beat anyone into accepting the official political line. There was nothing spontaneous about the actions of the young gangs on the streets. The marked targets were left unprotected and the police greeted the protesters with sympathy intervening only where the situation was threatening to get out of control. Ordinary citizens were petrified by these fascist gangs.

Numerous attempts were made by bourgeois analysts - both, liberal and right wing - to offer some "scientific explanation", as to what had happened on that grim and surreal day in the Serbian capital. Right-wingers tried to convince everyone how the people had been provoked and urged their voters not to repeat their ravaging, since that would, they claim, "weaken our diplomatic position in the UN Security Council". None of them unambiguously condemned what was an apparent outburst of fascist reaction in the very literal sense. Instead they tried to excuse and justify it by explaining that Kosovo arouses great emotions inside every Serb and blaming the "foreign element" among the protesters.

Liberal comments, on the other hand, blamed the government for its inability to stop the violence and tried to explain this event by whining about the lack of the "rule of law", in Serbia, lack of "respect for private property", and, of course, the moral decline of the Serbian society after almost a century of life under "collectivist ideologies" of communism and nationalism. Liberal intellectuals in Belgrade are in disarray, and isolated in their foreign funded NGO's, they cry about the return of nationalism and the utterly "backward" masses that are incapable of appreciating the advantages of Euro-Atlantic integration, thus keeping the whole country hostage.

As Marxists, it is our duty to reveal the total emptiness of both of these so-called "explanations". First of all, there is no need to "understand the emotions of the Serbian people", since it was not the workers of Serbia who launched such a savage campaign that night - it was well organized elements of lumpenproletarians and underage delinquents, gathered around football supporters' clubs and neo-fascist gangs. Even the majority of those people who had been seduced, and who saw the rally as a way of expressing national grief, were far from siding with fascist ideology and acts of mindless destruction. There were, naturally a few pauperized proletarians who saw the rampaging as an opportunity to get a hold of some valuables they cannot normally afford, but the responsibility for their actions lies entirely on the shoulders of the economic system which causes their economic frustrations to surface in this manner. The argument about national emotions of the masses bursting out is therefore nothing but a shameless lie of the Serbian right.

The significant fact is that the liberal bourgeoisie also needed the very same premise, i.e. that the riots were an expression of an ethnically frustrated population angry at the world. For this they blamed "moral erosion", "lack of respect for private property" and the "absence of the state of laws". Basically, this argument can safely be interpreted as just as reactionary as the one of the far right. While the far right called its hounds "the people" and their destructive frenzy "popular discontent" in order to create an apologetic atmosphere for fascist attempts of their goons, the liberal "theoreticians" are working hard to present the masses as inherently immature and in constant need of supervision of their caretaker, the State, particularly its organs of repression. The guardianship of the bourgeoisie is therefore necessary, as is the power of tear gas and batons to protect its authority. Without it, the masses would apparently run wild and destroy all in their way, for the slightest of reasons.

Reality, however, is completely different from this mythology promoted by the ruling class! The violence that erupted was carried out by far right groups that moved in an uncharacteristically organized manner, as if it had all been well planned previously. The rally was called a "protest rally" in the bourgeois media, but it was nothing more than a gathering of aggressive support for the government! A funny kind of protest, one may note.

The aim of the rally was to endorse Serbian imperialist aspirations, embodied in its most powerful bourgeois political parties, including the darling of the western press Boris Tadić and his Democratic Party. The fact that President Tadić was not able to openly oppose the right-wing character of the protest and left the country as an alibi, speaks volumes about the insecurity and weakness of the liberal pro-western forces inside Serbia who are forced to ride the bandwagon of nationalism in order to cover themselves from the wrath of the masses brought about by their aggressive pro-capitalist economic policies. It was not the masses but precisely those bourgeois parties that worked persistently in creating an atmosphere of ethno-nationalist frenzy, which resulted in all the pillaging and plunder.

The masses, strictly speaking, showed little interest in doing anything more than express their empathy and solidarity with the Serbs of Kosovo, whose lives are endangered by the Kosovar Albanian ruling class and EU and NATO thugs that safeguard its survival in power in Kosovo. Very few would have any words excusing the latest acts of fascist barbarism.

Barbarism is the key word here! Barbarism is what capitalism always and without exception eventually produces. Its rule led to a failure that ruined millions of lives. The government of Serbia has now turned to the only thing it does well - destruction and intimidation! And in that endeavour, it was surprisingly unified, not just in its parliamentary majority but within the bourgeoisie in general. At this point in history it was necessary for them to achieve such unity of thought and action and to create a situation in which they could cause chaos and mayhem in order to present themselves as necessary to maintain order, regardless of which side of the capitalist State medallion they represent.

The weaker and more impotent a small Balkan ruling class is, the more chauvinist and poisonous its rhetoric and actions become. The Serbian ruling class cannot resolve the national question for the Serbian population in the region, nor can it improve the living conditions of the masses. Squeezed by the imperialist powers it uses the same manoeuvre the Balkan ruling classes have used throughout their existence - it bargains with, and vacillates between, the different imperialistic powers, exploiting their opposed interests.

The Belgrade riots must be seen in this key. Far from an "irrational move" of "shooting oneself in the foot" as local liberals bemoan, the burning of the US embassy and the orchestrated terror is a very pragmatic move on the part of a desperate ruling class. On the internal front, it paralyzes the independent movement of the masses with threats of the fascist mobs. In foreign policy, the "unruly chauvinist lynch mobs" serve as a negotiating card in the dealings with the West. The Serbian ruling class is urging Washington and Brussels to loosen their grip and soften their demands, unless they want to see less co-operative nationalist elements in the government. On the other hand, imperialism is also not damaged by these events. The apparent threat of Serbian chauvinism against its neighbours is used to spread fear among the working classes and youth in the region and is thus used to justify the presence of the foreign troops as the protective element.

Capitalism has pushed the Balkans back into the state of a permanent "frozen conflict" and with the perpetuating ideology of chauvinism preying in the back. The working class clearly ignored the call of the ruling class this time around; however this does not necessarily mean that nationalistic illusions have disappeared forever. After a decade of bitter experiences, the working class has become wary and passive; on the other hand the ruling class found it easier to mobilize and manipulate the youth that have grown up in the poisonous atmosphere of the 1990s. This chauvinist sentiment will never disappear by itself. The pro-European liberals are too weak, isolated, demoralised and hypocritical to change this. In this situation, the bogeyman of nationalism will keep coming back. It can only be eliminated by the movement of the working class, armed with an internationalist ideology that crosses the tight borders within the Balkans.

Events worldwide will soon reach Serbia, it is just a matter of time, and some indications of popular discontent and the need for self-organization have already become apparent. Apart from a courageous protest of the students of the University in Belgrade in 2006 and 2007, the workers are also showing encouraging early signs of organizing themselves despite the present illusions in "workers' shareholding". In the town of Zrenjanin, in the North West of Serbia, workers put their shares together and took over two of the local factories, even forming a political party named "Ravnopravnost" ("Equality") to try and take over political power on a local level. These working class militants will learn fast from their experiences. Other industrial regions will undoubtedly follow as capitalist restoration progresses and the workers are driven into political struggle by the sheer lack of alternative. In order to derail the coming class conflict, the bourgeoisie are doing the same thing their partners in other countries around the world are doing. They are calling for national unity, denying the existence of class division and conflict and, with the aid of the lumpens enlisted in their ranks, promoting barbarism so that they can later appear as the ones who can contain it using police state methods.

As Marxists we see right through their pathetic charades, and consider it our duty to expose these attempted frauds for what they are! The responsibility for the recent fascist riots lies exclusively on the shoulders of the Serbian ruling class and its spokesmen Boris Tadić, Tomislav Nikolić and Vojislav Koštunica! Order cannot be brought by those who produce chaos and deal in death and exploitation!

The "Moral decline" argument is but a childish excuse to avoid mentioning economic and cultural decline that capitalist restoration has brought with it! Capitalism cannot and will not bring order, as it has been proven in practice on numerous occasions! Only a society based on association rather than competitive hostility can bring order and prosperity; in other words, it is the workers themselves that can and must take power to manage their own affairs through a self-governed society and self-managed production! Stop global barbarism - fight for socialism!RENEGADE EYE

Friday, February 22, 2008

My choices are for the main categories for the February 24th awards presentation are:Best Picture "Atonement"Actor Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"Actress Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"Supporting Actor Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"Supporting Actress Ruby Dee, "American Gangster"Director Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"Foreign Didn't see any of the nominations.

Best Picture"Atonement" "Juno" "Michael Clayton""No Country for Old Men""There Will Be Blood"

Supporting ActorCasey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War"Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton"

Best Picture"Atonement" "Juno" "Michael Clayton""No Country for Old Men""There Will Be Blood"

Supporting ActorCasey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War"Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton"

DirectorJulian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"Jason Reitman, "Juno"Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"

Original Song"Falling Slowly" from "Once," Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova"Happy Working Song" from "Enchanted," Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz"Raise It Up" from "August Rush," Nominees to be determined"So Close" from "Enchanted," Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz"That's How You Know" from "Enchanted," Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz

Sunday, February 17, 2008

February 18th is the date set for the General Elections in Pakistan. It is also the date when politics in Pakistan will enter a new epoch, the epoch when masses will come out to challenge the class that has oppressed and tyrannized them for generations.

The campaign of the largest party of Pakistan, the party that is supported by the downtrodden and exploited working class, the Pakistan People's Party, is in full swing and is reaching new heights never seen before.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on 27th December 2007 and the events that followed have sparked a new wave of revolutionary enthusiasm and awakening of the masses. The public meetings of the PPP are attracting the masses in their hundreds of thousands. Every street and road echoes with the slogan of Jiye Bhutto! (Long Live Bhutto!). The tricolour flag of the PPP adorns most of the streets and roads throughout the whole country. The revolutionary election campaign of the Marxists is also having an impact and posing a challenge to the capitalist class.RENEGADE EYE

“No Country for Old Men,” the Coen brother’s latest film, has received 89 favorable reviews out of 90 on rottentomatoes.com where my review will now join the other distaff take.

Many critics describe it as a return to the halcyon days of “Fargo” and they are partially correct. Like “Fargo,” “No Country for Old Men” exploits local color–in this case the laconic twang of West Texas. Unlike “Fargo”–unfortunately–the movie is structurally flawed with an ending that makes the final episode of “The Sopranos” look like a textbook example of dramatic conclusion.

Defying the normal audience’s appetite for a meaningful resolution, “No Country for Old Men” ends with a whimper rather than a bang. To a certain extent, this is necessitated by the plot of the Cormac McCarthy novel, about whose work I will have more to say. I am going to reveal the conclusion of the movie momentarily so those that plan to spend ten dollars or more to be ultimately disappointed should read no further.

There are three major characters in “No Country.” In the opening scene we are introduced to Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin in an impressive performance), a Vietnam veteran who is hunting antelope in the arid backcountry where much of the action takes place. He happens upon the aftermath of a drug deal gone bust, with dead or dying Mexicans lying on the ground next to their all-terrain pickup trucks equipped with high-power spotlights. After Moss notices a briefcase containing two million dollars, he absconds with it in a gesture highly reminiscent of the characters in the 1998 “A Simple Plan,” a much more successful essay on the moral and physical hazards of appropriating ill-gotten gains.

Hired to track down the cash is one Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a hit-man who lugs around a pneumatic stun-gun with a captive bolt that is ordinarily used for killing cattle. Chiguhr uses his to knock out the locks on doors behind which reside his intended victims or to knock out their brains slaughterhouse-style. Of indeterminate nationality, Chigurh is occasionally inspired to play with his intended victims, allowing them to toss a coin to decide their fate. His character is a mixture of a less interesting version of the Samuel Jackson hit-man in “Pulp Fiction” and the very first Terminator–the unrelenting evil one. Entirely missing is the kind of bent humor found in the kidnappers in “Fargo,” who despite being creeps were a source of amusement.

The third major character is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, played by Tommie Lee Jones. Naming the character Ed Tom is a demonstration of Cormac McCarthy’s resolve to make his characters authentically “good old boy.” He is the counterpart of the female cop lead character in “Fargo.” Unlike her, Sheriff Bell never really gets involved in apprehending Chigurh or any other bad guys. His main purpose is to serve as an outlet for McCarthy’s cracker-barrel philosophy–a mixture of Reagan-era conservatism and nihilism. At one point, Bell tells a colleague that everything started going downhill when young people began to dye their hair green and put spikes through their noses.

The movie actually moves along quite nicely until the final fifteen minutes or so. It consists almost entirely of Chigurh trying to track down and kill Llewelyn Moss in a manner that evokes all of the Terminator flicks. This pursuer is made out of flesh-and-blood, however. After Moss blasts him with a shotgun, Chigurh retreats to a seedy motel (”No Country” is replete with some of the scuzziest motels and hotels ever seen in a film) and performs surgery to remove the shotgun pellets from his knee. With the Terminator flicks floating in the back of my mind, I almost expected to see metal rods instead of bones beneath his flesh.

Up to this point, you are expecting a grand finale with the three major characters shooting it out. You hope for Llewelyn Moss to come out on top, since his character is especially engaging and resourceful. For example, he is adept at hiding the loot in the ventilation system of one run-down motel. I kept expecting something like the conclusion to the wonderful 1972 Sam Peckinpah movie “The Getaway” based on a Jim Thompson novel. Like “No Country,” “The Getaway” involves likable people (Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw) trying to elude hit-men hired to retrieve ill-gotten gains. It also includes some truly low-class motels and hotels.

However, McCarthy–in keeping with his nihilistic view of the universe–has Moss killed off before such a climax can even take place. Perhaps in an attempt to one-up McCarthy on anti-climaticism, the Coen brothers have him killed off-screen. Once he is gone, you really lose interest in the film entirely. Or at least I did, based on my take on the film compared to other critics on rottentomatoes.com. I can say that my wife had the same exact reaction. When we spotted Moss’s dead body, we turned to each other with a look of consternation as if to say, “What the fuck was that about?” When we returned home after the movie, I told her that our common reaction to the film reflected the strength of our marriage. If she had told me that this was the greatest movie she had seen all year, I probably would have filed for divorce.

In pouring through the mainstream media trying to find a review that jibed with my own, I could only turn up one. Writing in the Washington Post on November 9th, Stephen Hunter opined:

Derived from the hyper-violent Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, it’s a high-end “literary” thriller that traffics as much in ideas as in thrills, sometimes to its own detriment. It follows as a Vietnam vet (the time is the ’80s) antelope hunting comes across a Texas drug deal gone bad. Bodies, guns, blood, flies and folly are everywhere on the arid plains. He finds a huge chunk of money and makes off with it; alas, having promised a dying man a drink of water, he heads back, scotching his successful getaway. He is observed by other drug smugglers, and the chase begins.

You can’t say it cuts to the chase. There was never anything to cut from to the chase. It’s all chase, which means that it offers almost zero in character development. Each figure is given, a la standard thriller operating procedure, a single moral or psychological attribute and then acts in accordance to that principle and nothing else, without doubts, contradictions or ambivalence. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin; see story on Page 33), the laconic vet who finds the stash, is pure Stubbornness. His main pursuer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem in Robert Wagner’s haircut from “Prince Valiant”), is Death, without a pale horse. Subsidiary chaser Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) is Pride, or possibly Folly. Tommy Lee Jones appears in the role of Melancholy Wisdom; he’s a lawman also trying to find Llewelyn but not very hard. He’d much rather address the camera and soliloquize on the sorry state of affairs of mankind, though if he says anything memorable, I missed it.

Despite his reputation as being some kind of latter-day Faulker, I have a sneaking suspicion that McCarthy is an elevated version of Jim Thompson, or some other pulp fiction writer. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem capable of writing a satisfying conclusion to a novel as the best mass market writers know how to do. One suspects that this is simply a function of a worldview that amounts to a redneck dystopia.

If I had more time on my hands, I might take a look at McCarthy’s novels to try to extract out the rotten core and examine it under a strong light, especially the 1985 “Blood Meridian” that is described on the official website of the Cormac McCarthy Society as a dismantling of “the politically correct myth of aboriginal victimization, so that victims and their antagonists become indistinguishable.” The write-up continues:

In one celebrated scene, a column of mercenaries the kid has joined encounters a Comanche war party herding stolen horses and cattle across the desert. The kid barely escapes as the Indians, still vividly dressed like eldritch clowns in the garments they have stripped from their last white victims, annihilate his companions.

Just what the world was waiting for, a Faulkneresque novel that depicts American Indians as wanton killers.Louis Proyect

Friday, February 08, 2008

I will be having an open thread during the important elections this month in Pakistan.

By Adam Pal Friday, 08 February 2008

The election campaign in Karachi has gained momentum once again after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Karachi is the main industrial city of Pakistan with a huge proletariat. Workers from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds have migrated to the city over a period of decades. In order to break the unity of workers along ethnic and national lines, state sponsored organisations are also working in full swing.

The 18th February elections are an opportunity for the masses to express their anger and wrath against the ruling classes. Their deteriorating standard of living and miserable living conditions have once again pushed them towards the Pakistan People's Party, which they see as the party that was formed out of the 1968 revolutionary mass movement. The People's Party, in spite of what its leadership has done at different times in its history, is considered as a party of the masses and the workers. Because of this it has always been seen as a thorn in the side of the ruling classes.

The new tide of the masses towards the PPP, especially after the assassination of Benazir, has once again disturbed the agenda of the capitalists and landlords. In Karachi the state sponsored reactionary MQM has used terrorist and fascist methods to divide the working class and harass and besiege them. Their method has always been to try to keep the masses away from the political process and confine them within their homes and workplace.

However, now the people are fed up with these fascist methods and refuse to be kept as hostage in their own homes. The PPP is tipped to win the elections with big margins and this is giving sleepless nights to these fascist elements. In an attempt to stop this rising tide of the masses around the PPP they are employing new and modern tactics of rigging the elections.

In the past they killed many of their opposing candidates and their supporters. This time they have the added advantage that the Sindh regional government and city administration of Karachi are in their full control. All the law enforcement agencies are under their control and they have also a tamed judiciary which is working according to their whims.

Hundreds of PPP activists have already been booked under false charges of terrorist activities and are being held in jail. Their families along with the candidates are harassed by the Anti-terrorism court despite campaigning for the elections. This is only one of several methods employed to disturb the campaign of the PPP.

A big plan has been prepared for Election Day on 18th February 2008. Special arrangements are being set up for NA-257 Karachi. This was once considered a safe MQM seat. However, after a revolutionary Marxist campaign led by comrade Riaz Hussain Lund Baloch in this area, these fascist elements now fear defeat.

Special instructions have been issued by the governor of Sindh and by the city administrator to use all methods to stop the Marxists from winning this seat. In the past elections MQM always won by harassing and terrorizing their opponents. In NA-257, which constitutes part of Malir District and East District, people still remember the past elections with fear and terror.

In 2004 Abdullah Murad Baloch, who was a member of the Sindh Assembly for this area was assassinated. After his assassination by-elections were held in his seat and the MQM candidate won by blatant rigging.

That by-election was a tale of fascist activity at its peak. Big numbers of armed MQM thugs entered the polling stations at a specific time on Election Day and opened fire inside the station. The polling agents of the PPP were taken hostage and locked up in toilets and other rooms. Then these hoodlums seized the official stamps and started stamping the ballot papers unhindered.

The police and paramilitary forces were mere spectators while this rigging was going on. Armed men of the MQM also stood between the polling staff and the ballot box and when someone entered to stamp the ballot paper they snatched it and asked the person to go home saying that they would stamp it themselves.

This time as the local government is under their control, they have printed additional ballot papers for NA-257 to give them to their activists. This time ballot boxes could also be replaced inside the police vans as they are transported away after the balloting on Election Day.

If one looks at the election results of the by-elections in 2004 one would be surprised to see that MQM candidate got 100 percent of the votes in some specific polling stations which would be unique in the world. This clearly indicates that those elections were rigged.

The revolutionary campaign of the Marxists in NA-257 has mobilized the masses and they are now preparing to come out in big numbers on Election Day as their real guarantee of security.

These fascist elements are trying every means possible to harass the people including bomb blasts and target killings and they will step up their campaign of sabotaging the elections in the coming days. More bomb blasts and target killings can be expected in NA-257 before the elections.

The MQM is also pressurizing the Electoral Commission and Returning Officer who will announce the result. It is also possible that despite getting a majority of votes on Election Day, the PPP candidate could lose his seat. These reactionaries can force the Electoral Commission to announce the result in their favour. The only legal method to challenge this is through the courts where the appeals of 2002 elections are still pending!

All this fear, terror and oppression are unable to weaken the revolutionary commitment of the masses that are now treading the path of revolutionary politics. This time they have vowed to take revenge for all the tears and bloodshed. The stakes are high and the goal is socialism.RENEGADE EYE

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Journalist David Osler at his blog Dave's Part, presented a post that I think can be a good basis for a discussion about Kenya's latest events. According to Marxist Alan Woods,"Just look at Kenya - it was supposed to be a success story, carried out market reforms, privatisations, etc., it was considered a shining example of democracy. Now we see the opposite: barbarism, elements of social disintegration - as a result of all of that. It is easy to play up the elements of barbarism - we can see them even in advanced countries of Europe: crime, drugs, murder, collapse of morale in society. How can we expect anything else of a system in decline? As Lenin said: capitalism is horror without end.

The death toll in the disturbances in Kenya over the last month is now approaching 900, and appears to be escalating. Is there anything the rest of the world could – or should – do in an effort to put a stop to the violence? Is there anything the left can independently say?

Obviously, the answer to that question depends entirely on how one assesses the situation. Jendayi Frazer - US assistant secretary of state for African affairs – yesterday described what is going on as ‘clearly ethnic cleansing’, but was careful to add that she ‘does not consider it genocide’.

That evaluation seems to me – sitting here in London, with no special knowledge of the country beyond a visit on journalistic assignment a few years back - essentially incontestable.

Although there is a worrying tribal dimension to the killings, the scale of brutality does not seem commensurate with the portentous designation ‘genocide’, in the generally accepted sense of the word. This isn’t a re-run of the killing fields, at least not as things stand.

But saying that leaves open the issue of exactly where the threshold should be placed. Would 10,000 murders suffice? If not, 100,000? More still? Can we work on the basis of some hitherto unspecified percentage of a given ethnic group? Does 50% plus one count as genocide, but not 50% minus one?

It is impossible to answer that question, although one is reminded of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of hard-core pornography: 'I know it when I see it.’

Naturally, Ms Fraser chose her words extremely carefully; after all, 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which theoretically imposes on the UN an obligation to prevent genocide. I say theoretically, because in six decades, it is arguable that the UN has not acted to stop a single instance of this most horrendous of crimes.

Some regional rulers are urging drastic action. Paul Kagame, president of neighbouring Rwanda, has openly called for a pre-emptive military takeover:

"It might not be fashionable and right for the armies to get involved in such a political situation. But in situations where institutions have lost control, I wouldn't mind such a solution," he said in an interview in Kigali with Reuters on the eve of an African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

That’s not an idea any democrat could find remotely desirable, of course. In any case, it is simply not a runner, as the Financial Times points out:

Kenya is one of only a handful of sub-Saharan African countries never to have experienced a military coup.

The make-up of the army reflects some of the same divisions within Kenyan society exposed by the post election crisis. Many of the ground troops are from poorer ethnic groups sympathetic to Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who believes he was robbed of election victory. More of the officer class have been appointed from Mr Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.

Kenyans familiar with the army say senior commanders have been reluctant to allow the deployment of troops for fear they could splinter along ethnic lines.

Kagame speaks, of course, as the head of a country where long extant tribal tensions spun out of control, setting off the chain of events that led to the massacre of 800,000 people in the madness of 1994. That stands as a warning of what could yet happen in Kenya.

Yet the solutions that socialists normally advocate seem just as inoperative as his demand for the army to step in. I don’t doubt that some far left websites will issue rousing calls for the Kenyan working class to seize state power; but in a country where organised labour is as divided on tribal lines as any other institution, even such abstract propaganda is liable to be misread in tribal terms.

All the international left can do is watch matters play out, in the hope that two sets of corrupt and business-oriented bourgeois politicians defuse the brutality before a bloody endgame is reached. It is hardly an encouraging prospect. RENEGADE EYE